Month: March 2016

The last few days have been rough. Really rough for Dale and all because of his Evil Nemesis; Anxiety!

Dale is my hero, literally my knight in shining armour. He is my Eric to Ariel, Prince Charming to Snow White and all that cheesy Disney ‘happily ever after’ stuff. But even a Hero Prince has his thorn bush, high tower or evil witch queen to fight.

Dale has Anxiety. Anxiety is the horrible enemy that swallows him whole and takes him prisoner in his own mind. Sometimes he can’t surface few a hours and sometimes days. This week was one of the times that it has taken a few days for him to defeat the beast.

Dale scales his Anxiety from 1 to 10/10 (10/10 meaning time of work). This week it was at a 8/10. Not quite enough for him to have time off work, but enough for him to take a Beta Blocker (medication to slow his heart rate and assist him in calming down, which didn’t work in this instance). The worst part of this for me is learning that he was alone throughout the attack (apart from his trusty sidekick; Charlie the Jack Russell). I was at work, which means I’m quite hard to get to by phone (I work in a restaurant), and his parents wasn’t able to be there in person. He did manage to talk to his dad who is really great at calming him down. But he had no one there in person just to be there, no one just to grab hold of him and help him see it through.

You see, Anxiety is one of these things that saying ‘It’s gonna be okay! You’ll see,” just doesn’t work. You can’t just ‘Get Over It’ and you certainly don’t just ‘Stop worrying’.

I know when I say this I’ll possibly have many Anxiety Hero’s tell me I’m contradicting myself, but when Dale is having a moment of worry, I’ll grab him and tell him to “stop overthinking”. I know it doesn’t stop it, but I do it more so he knows that I know what’s happening in his brain. I’m more attuned to him then what we both realise.

I can’t stand seeing him hurt. As mentioned before, it’s a massive worry for me. I don’t mean hurt physically (as in cut or broken leg, although that would worry me too), I mean more mentally hurt.

He tried messaging me at work, but I wasn’t able to reply when he needed me most. When I eventually got to my phone to reply, there was a message saying ‘Going to bed x’. Good thing about FB Messenger, it lets you know when that was sent, and it said Now. So in a very desperate manner, I quickly text back and tried to get him. It took about 10 minutes of me worrying, and a few tears that I managed to get him on the phone.

For 10 minutes, I managed to escape the restaurant and speak to him. 10 minutes of listening to what was hurting him. You may think, hearing this while at work would only make me more upset because of not being there with him, but just being able to listen to him voice his worry put me at ease. I was there.

After returning to my job, my boss tried to come talk to me about chores that needed doing. She picked up on the fact that I looked sad and that was it. THE FLOODGATES OF ALLI BROKE! In honesty, I expected her to be annoyed that I had called Dale during work, but she was completely understanding and just told me that he was going to be fine. I wouldn’t say me and my boss are close, but I would definitely regard her as a friend. She tried to cheer me up, and even offered me chocolate which her boyfriend had brought her. Everyone needs a boss like mine. Give a few tears and BAM! Chocolate is in your hand lol. Also, thank goodness for waterproof Mascara and Eyeliner.

Today, I picked him up from the train station and we went to ASDA to go buy him chocolate (chocolate is definitely a miracle worker in this story), and we met my chef friend from work; Anna who also has anxiety. She’s also been battling with Anxiety lately and needs some time to rest and repair her armour (she’s Scottish so she’s hard as freaking nails that one!). When talking to her, even though she was smiling and seemed happy, I wished that she felt better soon and gave her a cuddle. As we walked away Dale said he was really happy that I didn’t just make light of Anxiety as something stupid and treated it as the serious illness that it is. He was proud of me that I didn’t just assume she was well because she was happy and smiling.

I admire people who deal with serious issues such as Anxiety, not because I wish I had anxiety or the like, it’s because I admire the strength and tenacity these people have. They get kicked down repeatedly, but they somehow manage to put a smile on even though they a struggling and hurting. Maybe I should just bring a duvet/blanket and chocolate wherever I go. Would that work?

So at the moment my Hero Prince is dealing with his Kryptonite and I’m just holding his hand throughout the trial…